Sepia Tone
by Commander
Summary: Louie stumbles upon an old photo album, which raises questions about his past. Rather lengthy one shot.


(NEW AN (January 2009):

I went ahead and edited this story a bit. After posting it, I realized that I had gotten some of the birthdates wrong (thank you for not roasting me alive for that, Disney Duck purists!), but at first I just decided not to worry about it… besides, Don Rosa himself said that there's no reason why anyone should consider his version of things "official". And the world of DuckTales is different enough from the comics that I figure a few discrepancies are excusable anyway.

But. For the past year or so I've been cooking up this huge saga of stories that take place within the DuckTales/Darkwing Duck universe, and many of the stories I've already written take place in that saga—namely The Sincere Fraud, Not Worth Ten Cents, my smut story on AFFN, You Win, aaaaaand… this one. And while planning out this saga, I've tried to figure out dates and such to make it all mesh together well. And I realized something—it made far more sense in my story to have Scrooge be the oldest child, not the youngest. And it made far more sense to have Hortense be the youngest, not the oldest.

So, Don Rosa, I bow to your superior judgment. ;p Granted, this is still a slightly different storyline from the comics, given the time period that DuckTales takes place in… leaving me to place the year of Scrooge's birth at 1907 for my story purposes. You can figure out the rest yourself. I didn't change everything to mesh with Mr. Rosa's ideas, though… I'm still keeping Donald and Della two years apart, not twins. I like it better that way. ;)

I also did some other editing to this, changing stupid passages so that they weren't so stupid anymore.

Disclaimer: Characters are Disney's, not mine. Please don't sue kthnxbi.

Hope you enjoy the tweaked version!)

…………

"Zap! Ha! You're dead!"

Huey fell over in a dramatic death scene, which would have been fairly accurate if he didn't break into a fit of giggles. His brother Dewey cocked his toy laser gun, trying to look hip, but soon he joined his brother in merry laugher.

Their third brother, Louie, poked his head around the chair. "Does that mean I'm not a prisoner of war anymore?"

"No, no, I haven't let you out yet!" said Dewey. "It's not over yet!"

Standing up, Huey made a half-hearted attempt to hide a yawn. "Actually, Dewey, I'm kinda bored of this game."

"You're only saying that 'cuz you're dead!" said Dewey, a bit angry, throwing his gun to the ground.

"We have been playing this game for awhile," Louie reminded his brothers, easily stepping away from what had been his prison, the game over.

"I'm getting bored too," Dewey admitted. "Maybe we could watch a movie!"

"Yeah!" cried Huey. "Like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_!"

"Oh yeah!" Dewey laughed. "'You're next! You're next!' Ha ha! I love it!"

"It's been awhile since we've seen it too," said Huey, picking up the toy guns lying around and putting them back in their places. He stole a glance at his third brother. "How does that sound, Louie?"

Louie shrugged. "I'm not really in the mood to watch a movie," he admitted abashedly.

"Aaw, fudgebucket," muttered Dewey, kicking the leg of the easy chair that had a few moments ago been Louie's cell. "I really wanted to watch that movie too!"

"Hey, hey!" cried Louie. "Just 'cuz I don't wanna watch it doesn't mean you two can't! You guys go ahead. I'll find something else to do."

Both Huey and Dewey seemed perplexed by this suggestion, clearly not used to the idea of splitting up their well-established trio. "Well… alright," Huey finally said. "It'll be weird watching it without you though, Louie."

"Maybe sometime later I'll feel more in the mood… but I don't want to just sit down and stare at a TV right now," said Louie with an apologetic shrug. "Maybe later though!"

"Yeah, maybe later," said Dewey. "See you around!"

"See ya!" said Louie as he went out the door to the triplets' playroom.

Once outside, however, Louie climbed up on one of the many chairs that decorated the long hallway and sat down, wondering just _what _it was that he wanted to do. It wasn't watching a movie, and it wasn't playing space wars with his brothers… Go outside, maybe? Nah, that would be boring without his brothers. Do his homework? Yeah, when pigs fly! Read a book? No, not now. He wasn't in the mood for that either.

No doubt about it, thought Louie with an inward sigh. He was hopelessly bored.

Maybe…

Louie sighed, this time aloud. It was obvious how desperate he was taking _that _train of thought, but nothing else was coming to mind… besides, he _could _be pleasantly surprised.

He'd go see what Webby was up to.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Louie lamented to himself as he crawled off the chair and tried to, as slowly as possible, amble his way to his surrogate cousin's room. When the best idea he could come up with was to play with that prissy, girly… okay, so he did like Webby, but come on. She wasn't exactly the best playmate, especially for rough and tumble boys like the triplets.

Reaching her room, Louie poked his head in the door, hoping that Webby was actually doing something remotely interesting. "Hey, Webby," he said, getting her attention.

The five-year-old turned her head and stared at Louie in surprise. "Hi Louie," she said, sounding a little confused. "What do you want?"

Louie caught a glimpse at what she had been playing—dollhouse. He winced inside; but there was no going back now. "I was… just wondering what you're doing. I'm kinda bored, and—"

"Oooh!" Webby squealed, clapping her wings in delight. "I've never had a boy play dollhouse with me before! I always have to do all the boy parts myself. But now a real boy can do them for me! This—" Webby held out a dollhouse figurine who looked like a comfortably well-off gentleman—"this is John, and he's the husband of Bonnie, and they have two children, little Joey and baby—"

"Oh, wait, I… I think I hear my brothers calling me," Louie frantically lied. "Sorry, Webby, I can't play with you."

"Oh." Webby's face fell. "Well… maybe tomorrow?"

"Maybe. We'll see." Louie tried his best to back out slowly, but when he was sure that Webby couldn't see him anymore, he broke into a flat-out run, not stopping until he ran into one of his uncle's smaller studies and slammed the door shut behind him.

"Whew!" he panted. "That was too close!" Realizing that he was still in the exact same predicament as before, however, he slumped against the wall in a pout. "I still have nothing to do though. Maybe staying with Webby would have been a good idea…" He shuddered. "Nah."

Pausing a minute to catch his breath, Louie looked around at the room he was in. He had never been in it before—well, maybe he had. In a house this big, it was sometimes hard to remember. If he had ever been in there, however, he had no recollection of it.

_Finally!_ thought Louie to himself. Something to do at last! He took a few steps into the room, wondering what to look at first… and how to clean up the evidence. He knew that his uncle Scrooge had forbidden that the triplets make messes of his studies… with good reason, Louie knew, but still, it could be quite the hamper. Discovering a large book on a bottom shelf, Louie pulled it out and blew the dust off the cover.

"Wackaroonie! An old photo album!" cried Louie. "I wonder…"

His wing was poised to open the book, but it wasn't moving. Louie gulped. Did he… did he even _want _to open up that book?

It wasn't a question of wanting to know. Louie _did _want to know about his family, for he knew next to nothing. As far as he knew, all he had were uncles—uncles who seemed to shuffle he and his brothers back and forth like shuttlecocks. And yet, that was precisely the reason that he was hesitant to take that first step. Obviously… his other relatives were all either dead, or… or what? Louie didn't know. He wanted to find out, and yet he didn't want to if the details would be too horrid. But how could he know if it was terrible if he never took the chance?

Louie sighed. No one knew that he felt so curious about—and vaguely disappointed by—his family. Not even his brothers. Sure, they had that twin vibe—in their case triplet vibe—going on. Sort of. Actually, they could often predict what one another would say, but Louie hardly considered it telepathy, and Huey and Dewey didn't either. They had grown up together; they knew each other well; they just _knew. _And Louie knew for a fact that his brothers didn't think much about the family that they never knew. Or if they did, they didn't care much.

That was the thing with Louie, though. It surprised people when the triplets actually acted as individuals—heck, it even surprised _them _sometimes, as Louie's suggestion to his brothers just minute ago had proven. But they were different from each other, and even if the three of them were wearing the exact same clothing, Louie could tell Huey and Dewey apart, just as Huey could tell Dewey and Louie apart, and Dewey could tell Huey and Louie apart. It was obvious to them, but no one else had mastered that—Uncle Scrooge liked to _act _like he could tell them apart, but they knew that, if they didn't helpfully always wear their signature colors, he would have given up ages ago. Sure they looked pretty similar, but there were subtle differences. And they acted different too.

That's why it was Louie who was weighing whether or not to open the book; Huey or Dewey probably wouldn't have pulled it out in the first place. And if they had, they would have opened it without hesitation, if only to laugh at the funny fashions of old.

Louie gulped. He pulled it out; he might as well just open it and get it over with. Shutting his eyes fiercely, he stuck his wing in a random page near the back and flipped it open, the front cover and all the pages before the chosen page landing on his lap with a flop. Slowly, almost painfully, he opened his eyes.

It was a rather large photograph, probably 8x10 or thereabouts, although it was clearly rather old. There were five ducks in the picture—a man and a woman, obviously married; a boy, probably their son, who looked to be around twenty years old or so; a girl who looked like a rather young teenager; and another girl who looked to be about three or four years younger than the teenager. They were all smiling; they sure _looked _happy, Louie thought. His eyes averted to the opposite page, the one on the right side.

The younger daughter from the first picture was in this one, looking quite a bit older. With her was a man in a navy uniform, and at their feet was a little boy duck. In the woman's arms was a baby, wrapped in a pink cloth.

Louie blinked and took a closer look at that picture, especially the little boy. He looked strangely familiar, and the picture didn't look like it was _that _old… it was in color, after all…

It hit him like lightning. That was Uncle Donald! He could remember, that year he lived with him, looking at his baby pictures. Besides, there was no mistaking that face. Uncle Donald had grown up since then, but that was most definitely him. The same eyes, the same beak, everything.

"If that's Uncle Donald," said Louie to himself quietly, "then that means that the baby is my…"

He left it hanging, and instead turned the page—and gasped. There was a young female duck, grinning, holding a baby in one arm… and two in the other arm.

"Mom," finished Louie, staring at his own baby picture.

He recognized her, if only subconsciously. Something about that woman was familiar to him, even though he and his brothers had been brought to their uncle Donald when they were three, and their uncle Scrooge when they were four. He wasn't sure why, but he _recognized _that duck, a memory from long, long ago…

But why did she leave her children? Louie could feel a quick spout of anger flare up against his mother. She looked so happy in that picture—then why did she just suddenly decide that she didn't want them anymore? Or was it different from that? Did she die? And where was their father, anyway?

With a determined look etched in his little face, Louie slammed the book shut and stood up, clutching the big book as well as he could under one wing. He might not like the answers, but he had gone this far; there was _no _going back now. He had to know about his mother.

And the only one who could answer his questions was Uncle Scrooge.

…………

"No, no, I said _buy _the shampoo stock, _sell _the phone company stock!"

Louie, cautiously poking his head into his uncle's home office, found himself feeling a little foolish. Jeez, even on his day off, Uncle Scrooge was still always business, business, business. The boy sighed inwardly. Uncle Scrooge probably wasn't going to want to halt his work to look at a photo album.

Scrooge slammed the phone down and hunched over whatever it was he was working on—probably balancing a checkbook or something. Louie gulped. It didn't look like Uncle Scrooge was in the best of moods… but still, he had come this far, he might as well ask. Maybe he would welcome a break? Louie nearly laughed out loud at that thought.

Timidly, he took a step into the room. "Uncle Scrooge?" he asked.

Scrooge looked up and, thankfully, didn't seem too annoyed by the interruption. "Louie! Do you want something?"

"Uh, well… only if you're not busy or anything."

"Ah, it can wait." Scrooge shut up the book, opened a drawer in his desk, and put his pen away.

Louie grinned. Uncle Scrooge's mood could often change for the better when he saw the triplets, thankfully.

"I found this old photo album," said Louie, showing his uncle the book—_now _if any time was when he would discover for sure if his uncle was going to get angry at him—"and I have no clue who anyone is in this book, and I was wondering if…"

Scrooge took the book from Louie's wings. "Where on earth did you get this, laddie? It's been ages since I've seen this book…"

"Can you tell me who everyone is?" asked Louie innocently. "I don't know anything about my family, but you can help me."

"Aye, y'have a right to know," said Scrooge thoughtfully. He sat back down on his chair and motioned for Louie to sit on his lap. Louie leapt up and Scrooge opened the photo album.

And for the next hour or so, Louie was whisked away to distant times and places as his uncle told him the stories he knew of all the ducks whose portraits were in the photo album—tales of that prestigious McDuck clan way over in Scotland, where they had lived for generations. Scrooge didn't know who some of the people were, actually, but most he did, and most he had at least a story or two to tell about; for many others he had more.

But they were reaching the end of the book now, and Louie knew that, sooner or later, they were going to come across those three pictures that he had found—the three that intrigued him the most.

And when Scrooge saw the picture, it took him aback as well.

"Blow me bagpipes," he murmured to himself, "now _here's _a photo I haven't seen in awhile…"

Louie pointed to the boy in the picture. "Is that you, Uncle Scrooge?"

"Aye, that it is, lad," said Scrooge with a smile.

Louie couldn't help but stare at the picture. Unlike Donald's picture, it wasn't obvious that the person in that picture was Scrooge at first or even second glance. He had changed quite a bit through the years.

He pointed to the parents. "And those are your parents, and my…"

"They'd be your…" Scrooge thought for a second. "Great-grandparents."

"Wow." Louie looked at the two ducks in awe—they were… they were the parents of his grandparent. He was related to them—rather closely, in fact. Close enough that he could conceivably be showing traits directly from them.

"What were they like?" he finally asked.

"They were…" Scrooge's voice drifted off, apparently getting lost in his own past. Louie waited patiently. "They were the best parents I could have asked for," he finally said fondly. "They never had much money, but they always made sure that we were well taken care of."

"Well then, you're certainly a rags-to-riches tale," giggled Louie.

"Only with a lot of hard work and a wee bit of luck," said Scrooge. "It's not something that can happen to just anyone."

"Yeah, most people are lazy." Louie turned his attention back to the picture and pointed to the younger daughter. "Who's that?" he asked, although, if the picture on the next page was correct, he already knew—that was his…

"That's your grandmother, my sister Hortense," said Scrooge.

Louie grinned. "My grandma!" He studied the picture a little closer and noticed for the first time that her smile seemed rather forced. "She doesn't look all that happy…"

Scrooge chuckled. "If memory serves correctly, she wasnae quite that keen on having a family portrait taken," he said. "There were other things she would rather have done."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't remember," said Scrooge with a sigh. "This was taken a long time ago! But—" his voice lowered a bit as if he was telling a secret—"I do seem to remember that when the photographer asked if he could take another picture because he thought that I blinked, Tensie yelled… a very inappropriate word."

"What word was that?" asked Louie eagerly.

"Never you mind," said Scrooge sternly.

"Sounds like she had a pretty bad temper," said Louie, smiling a bit.

"Where you think your uncle Donald gets it from?" said Scrooge. "Aye, Tensie was a fiery soul to say the least. But she always meant well. She was ten years younger than me… she was obviously closer tae Matilda than she was to me, but we still got along fairly well… which says a lot considering her temper!"

"Matilda?" asked Louie. "Is that her?" He pointed to the other daughter, the young teenage-looking one.

"Aye… that's Matilda." Scrooge smiled at the picture of his other sister, but it seemed strangely sad. Louie noticed this—he would have had to have been blind not to.

"What… what happened to her?" he finally asked, guardedly.

"She really was the golden child of the McDuck family," said Scrooge, as he dug through a side drawer of his desk. "Often the middle child is supposedly the neglected one, but not Matilda. She was so gentle, so fragile, and so sweet! My parents adored her, and Tensie and I did too. Strange that we weren't jealous. Ah, here it is!" Scrooge pulled out a small miniature of a very pretty duck lady—obviously Matilda, although about ten years older than she appeared in the family portrait.

"Wow, she's really pretty," Louie said in awe.

"This miniature was made around the time she got engaged," said Scrooge. "My father was so proud of her! My mother would have been too… if she had still been alive…"

"She died?" asked Louie. "What from?"

"Pneumonia," sighed Scrooge. "She always was frail, just like Matilda. If that pneumonia hadn't gotten her, something else would have."

"I didn't know people died from pneumonia," said Louie.

"They usually don't anymore," said Scrooge. "There's better medicine available now. But you have to remember that all this was a very long time ago."

"Oh… right," said Louie.

"She died far too young," sighed Scrooge, his eyes drifting to a small picture frame on his desk, a frame of the variety that held two small photos. Louie was surprised; how often had he been in here and not noticed that Uncle Scrooge kept a picture of his parents on his desk? "She always hoped to see our weddings, but Tensie didn't get married until she was forty years old, long after Matilda herself died. And I never did—"

"Tell me about Matilda!" cried Louie. "What happened to her?"

"Oh, right." Scrooge propped up his tiny miniature of his sister. "Like I said, she was engaged when this picture was made, to… you've met him, haven't you? Your uncle Ludwig?"

Louie blinked. "Uncle Ludwig?"

Scrooge began digging through his drawer again. "I thought that your uncle Donald took you tae meet him when you were living with him."

Doing his best impression of Scrooge, Louie cried, "I don't remember! That was a long time ago!"

"Very funny. Aha, I found it." Scrooge pulled out of his drawer a much more recent looking picture of a rather disheveled looking duck posing in a laboratory.

"You know, I think I do remember him!" said Louie, his eyes growing wide with remembrance. "He's kinda crazy, isn't he?"

"_Very _crazy," said Scrooge with a sigh. "Before he met Matilda, Ludwig Von Drake was totally committed tae science, music, literature, arts, psychology… just about any type of learning, really. Of course, the moment he met my sister he fell instantly in love with her, and for some reason she reciprocated his feelings."

Scrooge sadly set the picture of Ludwig next to Matilda. "They were both young when they got married… in their twenties. Ludwig actually planned to set aside many of his experiments for an indefinite period. They wanted tae have children, you see. But around that time Matilda began t' get massive headaches." Scrooge sighed. "They went tae the doctor right away… but by then it was too late."

"What?" cried Louie. "What was it?"

"She had a brain tumor," said Scrooge. "Those things lie dormant for ages until they start showing signs, but by that time there's nothing that can be done. Ludwig tried, of course. Went absolutely ballistic, trying tae find some way to cure her. But it was all in vain. She died only a month afterwards…"

Realizing that Uncle Scrooge was actually tearing up, Louie gave him a swift hug. "Wow, Uncle Scrooge, that's terrible! I can't imagine what it would be like to… lose a sibling."

"And hopefully you won't have to for a very long time," said Scrooge. "But anyway… what happened, happened. Your uncle Ludwig returned to his studies, and continues to get crazier by the year—and I know why, of course. He's never gotten over Matilda's death. He's still trying tae find a cure for cancer. Of course, her death hit my father pretty hard too. It was enough of a blow when my mother died, but when Matilda followed my father just lost his will tae live…"

"Don't tell me," said Louie. "He died of a broken heart, didn't he?"

"Well, that's no exactly what it says on the death register… but that's basically what it was."

Louie sighed. "This sounds like the overly-dramatic back story of a dime store novel. I'm tired of sad stuff, though." He pointed to the picture on the adjoining page. "Now, that's Grandma there, so I take it that that's my grandpa, Uncle Donald, and… my mom?"

"That's right," smiled Scrooge. "Now, Tensie—your grandmother—was, like I said, very hot-tempered, and we were all pretty sure that she wasnae the best candidate for married life. Even she agreed. But when she met your grandfather, something very odd happened—the two were absolutely _perfect _for each other. I'm not sure if I've ever met a pair more suitably matched, not even Ludwig and Matilda. She was rather old tae start a family, but she did—had your uncle Donald when she was forty-two and your mother two years later."

"So what happened to my grandparents?" Louie asked. "Are they even still alive?"

Scrooge shook his head. "I'm afraid not—"

"Oh great! What great calamity befell _them?_"

"Your grandfather was in the navy," said Scrooge, pointing to the picture of Louie's grandfather. "Always a potentially dangerous job, but especially during a war. The boat he was on was sunk… there was only one survivor, and it wasnae him."

"Oh." Louie's face fell. "That would be a terrible way to go. When did that happen?"

"When your uncle Donald was nine and your mother was seven. Ever since then, Donald's wanted to join the navy—and as you know, he finally did. He wants to redeem his family name, if you will."

"What about Grandma?"

"Oh, don't worry aboot your grandma. She lived a good life—a very active live, too. She died in her sleep about a year after you and your brothers were born—her heart just stopped beating. She just wore out one day and never got started again."

Louie, however, had latched on to the information of _when _his grandmother had died. "She died a year _after _we were born? That means that she knew us!"

"Aye, laddie, she certainly did," said Scrooge. "Was very fond of you too, and I know she'd be proud tae see the ducks you're growing up to be."

Louie gulped. This was all fascinating to learn about, but there was still the one unanswered question—the biggest one of all.

He turned the page to the photograph of his mother, his brothers, and himself.

"What happened to my mom?" he asked, looking his uncle straight in the eye.

"Oh, well…" Scrooge was clearly growing uncomfortable. "Well… I suppose… I suppose you're probably old enough tae know—"

"What did _she _die of? A hangnail?"

"She's not dead, Louie."

Louie blinked. _That _surprised him.

"Where is she, then?" he asked, confused.

"She's… she's…"

"What? Where?"

"She's in prison!" Scrooge finally shouted out.

Louie felt his stomach lurch. _"Prison? _What… what for? What did she do?"

Scrooge adjusted his collar nervously, searching for the most appropriate way to inform Louie of his mother's… delinquency. "Your mother was always… a trouble maker, to say the least. She was always very close to her father, and when he died she began acting out even more. In middle school she was constantly being sent tae the principal's office… in high school she and this gang of friends of hers beat up on kids, did graffiti, did drugs… all that."

To Louie's relatively virgin ears, his mother was sounding more and more like Hitler reincarnated. "Wackaroonie," he breathed in rather disgusted awe. "All of that?"

"Aye, all of that, and that was before she even dropped out of high school. Without school t' keep her occupied, as little as it did in the first place, she just kept getting in more and more trouble. Your grandmother, your uncle Donald, and I tried everything we could tae get her turned around, but she didnae start trying to behave better until…"

"Until what?" Louie demanded.

Scrooge turned away from Louie and looked out the window. "Until she got pregnant."

Now was the time that Scrooge knew that he couldn't tell Louie the whole truth… he was still too young for that. Too young to know of Della's primary shock, then glee at the fact that she was going to be a mother. Too young to know of the questioning that Hortense, Scrooge, and Donald put her under—"Well, it's one of four guys," she had said in answer to the question "Who's the father?" How irresponsible of her! Even when she found that she wasn't carrying one egg, nor even two, but _three, _she still wouldn't do the right thing and put them up for adoption. Scrooge could still remember her almost whiny "I'm keeping them, I'm keeping them! They're my babies and I'm keeping them!"

All of the logical arguments that her mother, uncle, and brother made—she was too young, she had no source of income, do you know how hard it is to care for even _one _child?—fell on deaf ears. She laid her eggs; she hatched them; she was happy. And…

"When she found out she was having you three," said Scrooge, continuing his narrative, "she actually went out tae find a job. Far easier said than done, of course. What kind of job does a twenty-year-old high school drop out with a criminal record as tall as my money bin find?"

"Not a very good one, I'd bet," said Louie dismally.

"She found minimal ones—and before you ask, _yes, _I leant her some money. But I wasn't about to provide for her—she had to learn responsibility on her own. And you know… for awhile, I thought she actually did," sighed Scrooge.

"But?" prompted Louie.

"But money apparently got tight, and she was too stubborn t' ask me or even Donald for help. So, idiot that she was—"

"She robbed a bank, didn't she?" asked Louie. "I can see where this is going!"

"Armed robbery," nodded Scrooge. "She got a fifteen year sentence, and obviously, she couldn't care for you three anymore. You were sent tae your closest relative, your uncle Donald."

"But then what?" asked Louie. "I mean, we obviously don't live with him anymore."

"Your uncle's in the navy," said Scrooge. "He makes a decent amount for a bachelor living alone. But three preschoolers? Do you know how much it costs t' take care of even _one _child?"

"How much?" asked Louie, never having thought of that before.

"A lot," said Scrooge wearily, leaning back in his chair.

"Ohh… Sorry," said Louie sheepishly.

"Eh, don't apologize… I mean, if I cannae pay for it, than nobody can, and people would have stopped having children ages ago. But anyway, your uncle Donald simply couldn't care for you three anymore after he joined the navy. It would have been unreasonable tae assume he could continue raising you. So—" Scrooge grinned—"so you came to me, your next closest relative, and, well, I think you know it from there."

Louie closed the book and sighed sadly. "I never knew my family was so full of catastrophe and bad choices. Doesn't look all that great for me, does it?"

"Oh, I wouldnae say you're cursed because of your family," said Scrooge. "Just because your family members died early or made bad choices doesnae mean you have to too. And besides, look at me! I haven't had a life of crime, and I'm still alive."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Louie closed the book. "Well, I think I'll go and see if Huey and Dewey are still watching their old sci-fi movie. Thanks for telling me all about my family, Uncle Scrooge!" He gave his uncle a quick hug and hopped off his lap. Soon he was out the door.

Scrooge chuckled to himself. "What an inquisitive lad," he mused to himself. "Why, he reminds me of his…"

He stopped.

Louie was, not exactly but in many ways, very much like his mother—his irresponsible, criminal mother! Scrooge winced. What would happen if the triplets went down the same road that their mother did? They… they _couldn't! _But what if it was just bound to happen anyway?

No, of course not. Wasn't that what he had just assured Louie of, anyway? Heredity may play a large part in determining behaviors, but environment could too! It all depended on how children were _raised. _Yes, even if their parents were messed up, the children could still be redeemed! It was clinically proven!

And he was well on that way, Scrooge thought proudly. The boys were thoughtful, helpful, usually well-behaved… well, _usually._

His wing was poised to open up his desk drawer and continue his work… but it didn't move.

"Maybe," Scrooge said to himself, "maybe I should go see what the boys are up to… I've probably worked a bit too much today."

The boys would probably turn out just fine, Scrooge reassured himself as he put his things away. But still… it wouldn't hurt to continue that TLC.

Besides, an old sci-fi movie was _always _appreciated. Always.


End file.
